In like manner the introduction of the mariner's compass was followed by imposing material and moral effects.

These were--the discovery of America in consequence of the rivalry of the Venetians and Genoese about the India trade; the doubling of Africa by De Gama; and the circumnavigation of the earth by Magellan.

With respect to the last, the grandest of all human undertakings, it is to be remembered that Catholicism had irrevocably committed itself to the dogma of a flat earth, with the sky as the floor of heaven, and hell in the under-world.

Some of the Fathers, whose authority was held to be paramount, had, as we have previously said, furnished philosophical and religious arguments against the globular form.

The controversy had now suddenly come to an end--the Church was found to be in error.
The correction of that geographical error was by no means the only important result that followed the three great voyages.